of kindness and speak out in a way that you want to. but if you ask newtown the president has found a new line of attack and it's actually a very simple question. what's your plan? and i'm going it tell you about this little desk later. >> the government can't just stand on the sidelines in our efforts because the government is us. >> he has promoted the obama care act on obama care. >> i know people call this law obama care. >> obama care. >> and that's okay, because i do care. >> back on the hill, republicans are not backing down.

>> chairman darrell issa. >> no one is suggesting for a moment that we take government out of health care. >> right. >> that one kicked me in the belly. they have no plan. >> we've been putting deals on the table. >> but nothing's passed. >> the other issue obviously is the economy. >> the economy remains the single biggest concern. >> washington consistently failed to act. >> these asperities have become too big to ignore. >> making an action across the board. >> raising minimum wage, assistance to the long-term unemployed. something of a warning call to the american dream. >> it is not simply a moral claim. >> it's rooted in the personal. >> so we can make a difference on this. >> there are 19 shopping days to find health insurance on the

government exchange. 29,000 people reportedly completed the application and selected a health plan on the federal exchange on sunday and monday but we don't exactly know how many of them completed the purchase and have paid their first premium. today, president obama told young supporters at the affordable care act youth summit how they can help make health care reform a success. >> the truth is, that for your friends and family, the most important source of information is not going to be me. it's going to be you. they are going to trust you if you're taking them on a website, walking them through it, saying, look, at the price you're able to get, at the benefit that you're able to get, that's going to be making a difference. people call this law obama care. and that's okay. because i do care and -- i do. i care about you, i care about

families, i care about americans. >> the president warned the so-called young invincibles to be aware of campaigns encouraging them not to buy health insurance. >> believe it or not, there are actually organizations that are out there convincing young people not to get insurance. now, think about that. that's a really bizarre way to spend your money. to try to convince people not to get health insurance and some of these ad campaigns are backed by well-funded special interest groups. i you a assume they've got great health care and, just remember, and remind your friends and your peers, imagine what happens if you get sick. what happens with the massive bills? the people who run those ads, they aren't going to pay for your illness. you are going to pay for it or your family is going to pay for it.

and that's hard to imagine. look, i do remember what it's like being 27 or 28 and aside from the occasional basketball injury, you know, most of the time i felt like i had nothing to worry about. of course, that's what most people think until they have something to worry about. >> today the senators for medicare and medicare services reported that healthcare.gov had 950,000 visitors on tuesday. the response time is now about half a second. but the president said technical problems with the website won't the last challenge the affordable care act law faces. >> there will be other things that come up during the course of the next several months because you're starting off a new program that has an impact on 1/6 of the economy. this is a big deal, to quote joe biden.

and so -- but we're just going to keep on working on it and improving it and we're not going to repeal it, not as long as i am president. >> joining me now, krystal ball and zeke emanuel serving as special adviser for health policy in the obama administration. krystal, it sounds like the website is working like a website. >> yeah. and that is a beautiful thing, both because it's time for us to move past the debates and the questions about glitches and into actually seeing this law work in action. i mean, i think the republicans are going to find themselves in a very perilous place where they have pinned all of their hopes and all of their messaging and all of their platform on hoping that this law fails.

they grabbed on to the website and they grabbed on to the president wasn't very straight with you. but over time the law is going to work better and better and we are going to see success stories that we are increasingly seeing and republicans are going to be caught with their pants down and hanging on to this thing, but we really hate obama care, don't you hate it, too? >> zeke, the numbers are still a little vague. they can't tell us how many people have purchased health insurance, how many haven't. they can tell us how many people have made a selection off the menu but have they executed it? have they paid for it? do i have an i.d. number with an insurance company? that number seems to be elusive. >> it is elusive and there is still work to do on the back end. but remember that the real number is at the end, march

31st, 2014, where seven million people will get insurance through the websites, california, kentucky, connecticut, and others. and that's really the number that we need to keep our eye on, is it going to be seven million or more than seven million and are a fair number going to be young people between 19 and 35. those are the key valuables to keep your eye on. >> krystal, the president said he was shocked that these interest groups out there are monitoring these campaigns to get young people to not buy health insurance and then he gave them a bunch of rational reasons why you might want to get health insurance but he never said he was shock that these students trying to talk them into buying health insurance. that is breaking the law.

doesn't that show you how afraid the republicans are? >> i think that's right. americans don't like to be bristled any time you tell us what we have to do but ultimately the individual mandate is a key part of this law and it's a big part of why the law will ultimately be successful because people do basically want to follow the law. even if they think it's going to be a small penalty, they are going to weigh that penalty heavily in their minds because they want to basically be on the right side of the law. i think the president's messaging there is very careful but it's outrageous when you think about it, they are telling people to be irresponsible, take a chance, roll the dice, break the law and go without health insurance and these are the same conservatives who would have said in an earlier time if you didn't take the personal responsibility to buy health insurance, then you deserve to

suffer the consequences and now they can actively advocating for young people to go without insurance. >> we should also make clear -- we should make clear, first of all, that there are multiple reasons for people to get insurance. it's not just the penalty. first of all, you've got subsidies here which are bringing down the prices. second, there's been competition that have already brought the insurance prices on average down, especially in important states like california. and then there's the penalty. and by the way, the penalty is not as small as people think. people say it's only $95 or the law says 1% of your income which, if you're making $25,000, is $250. and next year it will be 2% of your income and the year after it's 2 1/2 percent of your income. it's not just the $95 and it's not just the penalty. there's lots of things i think pushing people to get insurance and i haven't even mentioned the free preventive care once you buy insurance which will

probably cover more than your premium. there's lots of people moving people in that direction. >> you did just mention it, zeke. i want to show more about how the president is trying to sell this to young people, including without mentioning that there's a legal penalty involved. >> now, i am not allowed, for security reasons, to have an iphone. i don't know what your bills are. i've noticed that sasha and malia seem to spend a lot of time on them. my suspicion is that for a lot of you, between your cable bill, your phone bill, you're spending more than 100 bucks a month. the idea that you wouldn't want to make sure that you've got the health security and financial security that comes with health insurance for less than that price. you know, you guys are smarter than that. >> it is a soft sell. >> it is a soft sell.

>> let me -- >> go ahead, zeke. >> let me say one other thing. my research assistant, 25 years old, has written a lot of articles with me. he just experienced the health care. he had appendicitis, tens and thousands of dollars, you can be sure. it really is crazy to go without insurance. >> and i think we underestimate in a way young people thinking that they are invincible and that they are not going to need health insurance. they can see how broken this system has been for their parents and grandparents and they are much more aware of the fact that we feed to have health insurance more than we're giving them credit for and ultimately i think they do understand that health insurance is an important benefit for them to be covered.

>> the president tried to be inspiring today and enlist this youth summit which is a crusade to make the affordable care act be successful. >> i hope you haven't been discouraged by hard it's been because stuff that's worth it is always hard. the civil rights movement was hard. get women the right to vote, that was hard. making sure that workers have the right to organize, that was hard. you know, it's never been easy for us to change how we do business in this country. this has been the case for social security, for medicare, for all of the great social progress that we've made in this country. >> krystal, it sounds like he's trying to get them to remember the reason they got involved in his presidential campaign. >> yeah, i think so. and i think it's important that we keep the perspective on why

it's taken so long to reform our health insurance. it is because it's hard and there are parts that are disruptive and it makes people uncomfortable but ultimately we have put our faith and trust in this law and in this president and i think we're going to be better off for it. >> zeke emanuel and krystal ball, thank you. coming up, a last word exclusive, those three high school athletes who were arrested in rochester, new york, this week while they were waiting for their school bus, they will join me.

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boston globe report elizabeth warren was asked if she wants to run for president and her answer, "i'm not running for president and i plan to serve out my term." reporters asked her if she would

make a pledge to stay until her term runs out in 2018. she said, i plan to stay my term. the current president of the united states also pledged to serve out his time in the united states senate and we all know how that turned out. up next, guess which side the pope agrees with. ezra klein and eugene robinson will be joining me. [ female announcer ] can it get any cleaner? with swiffer bissell steamboost... [ steam hisses ] guys! [ female announcer ] ...it can.

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the idea that so many children are born into poverty in the wealthiest nation on earth is heartbreaking enough. but the idea that a child may never be able to escape that reality because of a community that views her future as their own, that should affect all of us. >> the president focused on rising number and equality and called it a fundamental threat to the american dream and challenged republicans his opposition to stop opposing his increase in the minimum wage. >> if republicans have concrete plans that will actually reduce inequality, build the middle class, provide more ladders of opportunity to the poor, let's hear them. i want to know what they are. if you don't think we should raise the minimum wage, let's hear your idea to increase people's earnings.

if you don't think every child should have access to preschool, tell us what you would do differently to give them a better shot. if you still don't like obama care -- and i know you don't -- even though it's built on market-based ideas of choice and competition in the private sector, then you should explain how exactly you'd cut costs and cover more people and make insurance more secure. you owe it to the american people to tell us what you are for. not just what you are against. joining me now, eugene robinson, msnbc political analyst and columnist for "the washington post" and ezra klein for "the washington post." eugene robinson, what's your plan? what is your plan for increasing economic opportunity and health security in this country? >> my plan is simple. raise the minimum wage, lawrence. that's number one. and number two, i think we need

to focus resources on those communities that have been left behind. if we do those things, we will actually helping the whole economy. we'll be building the middle class which, after all, is the way that america succeeds. that's the way america has done it in the past and that's the way that america should do it now. >> jim, do you think politically the what's your plan tactic is helpful at this stage? have we reached a point where it is the moment where the american public are starting to wonder, okay, republicans, what is your plan? >> well, i think the evidence is that it may be because a lot of republican commentators are sort of asking that question and are suggesting gently and then not so gently this party of no has only gotten us so far and it's not going to take us over the hump. we actually have to come up with some ideas. >> ezra, i cheated. i read your review of this speech and to put it mildly, you

kind of liked it? >> i've got a forthcoming even longer than you. i think this is in terms of his president laying out the economy policy by far the best economic speech he's given. it wasn't part of a campaign speech. it wasn't to try to get the republicans to support a jobs act. this is the president telling them he thought it was important for them to here. but i disagree with a fair amount of it. the organizing theory of the economic left is about inequality. you saw it in bill deblasio's campaign and i think it's too quickly to move beyond a jobs and growth crisis, none of which are about inequality. if we could solve jobs and growth which are in a serious catastrophe mode that we forget in washington, i would be concerned about inequality in

the future. >> the pope -- i'm sorry. the president thinks he has a new ally on this subject than the pope. let's listen to part of this speech. >> this trend towards growing inequality is not unique to america's economy across the developed word inequality has increased. some of you may have seen just last week the pope himself spoke about this at eloquent length. how can it be, he wrote, when an elderly person dies of exposure but it is when the stock market loses two points. >> that is not an easy one to answer. >> it's not an easy one to answer. you know, i wrote about the pope's speech last week, lawrence. and i found it striking that this is what the church has been teaching, basically, about economics for some time. but he really put a focus on that and i think a lot of

catholics paid attention to it. it's interesting that he's trying to put this on the world's agenda and inequality is a problem. i do think it's something that we can address. obviously you want the economy to grow overall. but to forget the inequality, i think, or to take for granted that it will just kind of be taken care of doesn't always work out that way. >> kathleen parker conservative columnist wrote this about the party's messaging. thus we see msnbc negativity, series of unfriendly faces decrying the affordable care act with apocalyptic language, which would any american prefer? the doomsayer or the elves? >> it is something that they would, it seems to me most

people would want to see work. >> i think that's right. a lot of pollists say that it will work. there's an old phrase in politics, an old plan is no plan. if a year from now, 12 months from now, eight months from now, the affordable care act is not insuring a bunch of people, it's not going to look good even if republicans don't have a better alternative for it. if that were true, repeal would be in the works but if the plan is in fact insuring five million, seven million people, if people are better offered and their children and families and neighbors have health insurance when they were previously denied and could not afford it, having some alternative is not going to matter one way or the other. i think people under estimate it's how policy works in real

people's lives. >> john boehner's response to this is we pass bills all the time. they just don't pass the senate and don't get the president's signatures so don't blame us for not doing anything. >> well, they do pass bills but have you looked at those bills? they are an athama to the senate democrat majority and to the president that has to sign them in law and they are unyielding on this. they have no interest in working with democrats in the house, for example, to come out with something in the middle or something that would pass muster. so, yes, they throw mud but it doesn't stick. >> thank you both for joining me tonight. >> thank you. coming up, a last word exclusive. the three rochester high school students charged with loitering while waiting for their school

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time for tonight's rob ford update. toronto's mayor, rob ford, may have been trying to buy the video of him smoking crack cocaine two months before news of the video was released, according to court documents obtained by canada's ctv news. the documents are part of a drug trafficking investigation by toronto police and include wire

taps of alleged drug dealers. police say that men on the tape discuss $5,000 and a car from the mayor for the video of him smoking crack. documents show the suspects wanted $150,000. police believe the drug dealers stole the mayor's cell phone which contained the video while the mayor was at a crack house in toronto. on the tapes is an alleged phone call from one man to another in the middle of the night directing him to a location because, quote, rob ford wants some drugs. police say also on the tapes is another phone call where one man says the mayor had been, quote, smoking his rocks, end quote. police are also investigating whether a murder and a kidnapping may have been connected to a blackmail scheme involving the cell phone video.

for once mayor ford has not commented. up next, those three teenage boys who were arrested while waiting for their school bus now that the prosecutor has seen the light and dropped those charges. life with crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis is a daily game of "what if's". what if my abdominal pain and cramps end our night before it even starts? what if i eat the wrong thing? what if? what if i suddenly have to go? what if? but what if the most important question is the one you're not asking? what if the underlying cause of your symptoms is damaging inflammation? for help getting the answers you need, talk to your doctor and visit crohnsandcolitisadvocates.com

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is 50% more absorbent than a full size sheet of the leading ordinary brand. use less with bounty select-a-size. they are members of the high school basketball team who were waiting for their school bus to take them to a scrimmage basketball game on wednesday morning, arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for obstructing pedestrian traffic on this sidewalk. >> there are social movements that occur on social media and this is a great case in point. >> from twitter it made its way into a national television program that you know they were watching. >> just downtown, minding your own business. >> we tried to tell him that we were waiting for the bus. he didn't care. >> if i were law enforcement in rochester, i would be thinking about issuing an apology and dismissing charges. >> after reviewing the facts associated with these arrests, i

have decided to dismiss the charges in the interest of justice. >> these young men were doing nothing wrong. nothing wrong. >> i'm very concerned about a pattern of young people, especially young people of color, being miss -- abused by police authority and to me this seems like a very clear case, part of a pattern. >> joining me now for a last word exclusive from rochester, deaquon carelock, raliek redd, wan'tauhjs weathers along with their coach. this says the police officer observed citizens having to walk around the group, meaning you guys and your friends, in order to continue walking across the sidewalk and watched at least two customers leaving the store had to walk in the middle of the

group to exit. the officer yelled down to the group from the corner that they had to leave. wan'tauhjs, were you blocking? did you try in any way to block people in their passage on that sidewalk? >> no. >> and according to the police report itself, what's so striking about what i just read is that is -- that is the crime that this arrest alleges. and as the police officer has written here, there is absolutely no crime because he says that the people who were walking continued to walk along the sidewalk that, in fact, nothing that you guys did actually blocked anyone from walking anywhere. deaquon, what did the police -- what did they say to you about why you were being arrested? >> they didn't say nothing, really? >> and did you ask them, as they

were approaching you? when did you realize that you were being arrested? >> when he put the handcuffs on me. >> and raliek, there were more of you there. there were at least -- according to the police report, there were more of you there. why do you think -- do you have any reason to understand why only three of you out of that larger group were arrested? >> i think we were arrested because like we was the first three down there and it was early. >> and you three were the easiest ones to grab? >> yeah. >> jacob scott, you're their basketball coach. you were not there at the moment where this all began but you arrived in your car knowing that your students, your players were on their way to catch the school bus to go to a scrimmage game. what did you see when you arrived? >> well, when i arrived i

noticed that deaquon was up against the car in handcuffs so i immediately got out of my car, approached the police officer and asked what was actually going on. i told him that i was -- i let them know that -- you know, who i was, as far as jacob scott and that i'm the varsity basketball coach at edison tech high school and, you know, deaquon were in handcuffs and the other two were in the back of the police car. so i just asked the police officer very politely what was going on and why they were in handcuffs. >> and what response did you get, coach? >> the police officer told me that he asked the guys to go home, to disperse from the area. i at that time told him that, you know, this is the spot that they always wait for the bus to

go to a game. the bus was supposed to arrive momentarily and we were on our way to a basketball scrimmage. we didn't have school on that particular day. it was the day before thanksgiving. it was early in the morning. there were tons of people outside. i noticed that the other athletes were off to the side kind of just looking, wondering, too, what was going on. and after a few more questions i asked the police officer, he later then told me, you know, i needed to disperse and leave the premises. >> wan'tauhjs, were you aware of how much attention this story was getting outside of rochester? >> not until two days ago. >> well, it began for me on social media. i saw it on twitter. i saw the story on twitter from actress singer audra mcdonald and then i brought the story to this show and deaquon, i was

actually thinking that the more attention we could bring to it, the more likely it would be that the prosecutor would have to look into this and dismiss the charges. were you guys getting the feeling up in rochester that the publicity and the attention that you were getting in rochester was going more your way than the police's way? >> yeah, because we went to school and everybody was talking about, yeah, we support you. y'all are going to get off. it feels terrific. >> there's a part of this police report that is very vague and deaquon, it's about you. it says that carelock immediately stated that they were waiting for the bus here. the officer then told carelock and the group that they could not remain here and go down to the bus stop if they were catching the bus. carelock refused to leave and just continued to talk about why he did not have to go down to

the bus stop. is that an accurate account of what happened? >> not that accurate because when he was telling me to move i was explaining why i was there and while he kept going back and forth, i took one step -- he pointed us -- told us to go and he said and i had a smirk on my face and he said you think that's funny? put your hands behind your back. >> you know, what i find so striking about that passage in the police report is he doesn't quote you at all. he talks about you and your reaction, deaquon, but he does not quote anything you said there and when the police actually have real evidence from someone on the scene like that, they use quotations. i want to thank all of you for taking the time to join us

tonight. i want you to though that the audience of this program took a very strong interest and very quickly in what happened to you and the audience of this program wanted to see that district attorney finally do what she did and dismiss those charges. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> thank you for joining us tonight. >> thank you. coming up, the pope continues to excite america's most famous catholics. stephen colbert on the latest surprising story about the pope that's coming up. we ever a very special ♪

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in out of africa, this was written by the african countryside. "everything you saw made for greatness, freedom, and unequalled nobility." now, i know how grandiose those words might sound to people who have never been out there. i mean, way out there. far from africa's big cities, way out there down those dirt roads where you never see a car but you do see this. so far off the grid that no one knows what the grid is, where you meet mothers carrying their children and using the art of head carriage for heavier loads and carrying those loads for miles. if that isn't greatness, what is? if she didn't noble, what is? you see kids carrying little

kids everywhere. the phrase daycare doesn't exist there. but that's what you see. small kids taking care of babies and toddlers for the day while their mothers walk to town ten miles hoping to sell for food. this is one of the things that keeps kids out of school in africa, especially girls. another is the condition of the schools. when you go to school and discover there is no classroom for your class and you spend the day sitting in a field trying to see the black board on a tree, your mind might wander and you're not surprised when classmates begin to wander away. if you're one of the lucky ones who has a classroom, it will be dark and crowded and the floor will be cold in the morning when you first sit on the floor. teachers in africa know that

better classrooms will attract and keep more students. that's why they tell me the most important edition to their classrooms is desks. that's why i started kids in need of desks, the k.i.n.d. fund. we provide desks to african schools. it's, first of all, a jobs program for malawi. it was a crafts center. thanks to your generosity to the k.i.n.d. fund, the factory has moved to a much, much bigger location and hired many more workers who no longer have to worry about how they are going to feed their families. and we've expanded production to three other countries in malawi that have produced desks like this one. a few months ago i had another chance to accompany one of our

desk delivery trucks to a school which is always the high point of my year. when a truck arrives at a school, it's like christmas morning. the kids love unloading the truck and carrying the desks themselves and in a flash this classroom is transformed into this classroom. ♪ ♪ >> and maybe one of the kids who was slumping in fatigue in the sixth or seventh hour of sitting on the floor is transformed by one of those desks into a more attentive student, maybe a nurse, a doctor, maybe a president. i'm just saying, maybe.

these are kids who have no furniture in the huts in the villages where they live. most of them sit and sleep on the floor at home. they have never in their lives seen desks and suddenly they are sitting at their very own desks. imagine what that does to their sense of the possible in their lives. but if these desks do nothing more than make thousands and thousands of kids more comfortable during their school day, that's good enough for me and i want to keep doing that for thousands and thousands more kids. i always ask for your help this time of year because it is the season of giving and because unicef will send a gift notice to anyone on your shopping list if you give a desk in his or her name. leenie tweeted yesterday that she is giving desks as gifts this year. you can always contribute 24/7,

every day of the year at our website lastworddesks.msnbc.com or by calling 1-800-for-unicef or you can contribute to k.i.n.d.'s tuition for girls. why girls need much more help to stay in school in africa. you don't have to contribute a full year's tuition or the full cost of a desk. any amount that you can give to the k.i.n.d. fund will help build these desks or keep girls in school. and if you can't afford to contribute, you can still help by spreading the word about the k.i.n.d. fund to your friends or through social media. as usual, i will try to thank as many as of as possible individually by name right here on the show or on twitter or online because nothing we do here, nothing, no story we do on this show, no one we talk about

on this show, no politician, no president, nothing is more important to me than him or her or any of the kids and teachers that i've come to know at schools in malawi. now, i know if i could bring you to those schools with me, i wouldn't have to say a word to get you to do everything you possibly could for those kids. and when you got home, you wouldn't need pictures to remember them. their voices would stay with you. their eyes would stay with you. their smiles would stay with you. and whenever you wanted to, all you'd have to do is close your eyes to hear them sing.

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yesterday we learned that pope francis sneaks out of the vatican at night in plain clothes which is to say, of course, plain priest clothes instead of pope clothes, to accompany one of his bishops to minister to the homeless in the streets of rome. a course told "the huffington post" that the story has been confirmed by swiss guards. >> oh, my god. he's a vigilante vicker coming to the help of those in need. he's the bat pope. holy, holy father nation. it all makes so much sense now. he's just like bruce wayne. he's a wealthy bachelor who lives alone in a giant mansion. and bruce wayne has the bat

mobile while francis has the popemobile. not only that, batman talks to morgan freeman and the pope talks to god who is also morgan freeman. and -- and -- just like the bat suit, the pope suit has nipples. >> last week, the vatican released pope francis' first papal wrote, i encourage financial experts and political leaders to ponder the words of one of the sages of antiquity, not to share one's wealth with the poor is to steal from them and take away their livelihood. it is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs. pope francis gets tonight's last word.

tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc, watch chris matthews interview president obama. chris hayes is up next. president obama comes here tomorrow. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. i got the christmas eve excitement brewing here at hard balance, because tomorrow at precisely this time, the president of the united states is going to join us on "hardball." it's going to be a serious night of questions, certainly for me, questions about executive management methods and the health care rollout, voter suppression across the country and war and peace questions. how we can avert war with iran. we've been hitting these issues on "hardball."